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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25671358">Winging It</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andian/pseuds/Andian'>Andian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fake AH Crew, Fluff, Humor, M/M, slight angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:34:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,149</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25671358</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andian/pseuds/Andian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan threw him a supremely unimpressed look, his expression more than a little bit pissed off. </p><p>“We crashed in the middle of nowhere,” he then began. “Because you said, and I quote, two fighter jets are no problem, I can totally wing this!” </p><p>Staring at the burning helicopter in front of them, Jeremy had to admit that he had in fact not quite managed to wing it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeremy Dooley/Ryan Haywood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Winging It</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtrumCorvus/gifts">AtrumCorvus</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the Secret Sunshine Writing Event at the AH Discord Server. For AtrumCorvus, I hope you like it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Technically, this isn't my fault."<br/>
<br/>
"If you tilt your head and squint real hard perhaps."<br/>
<br/>
“If I squint real hard the helicopter is technically not burning anymore.”</p><p>It wasn’t even a lie. If Jeremy half-closed his eyes and took a few steps back, you could barely see the flames engulfing the helicopter from where they were currently standing. Granted, you could still smell the smoke and with the way the wind was blowing, they probably should take a few more steps back, otherwise having survived a helicopter crash might end with them dying of smoke poisoning instead. Ryan threw him a supremely unimpressed look, his expression more than a little bit pissed off.</p><p>“We crashed in the middle of nowhere,” he then began. “Because you said, and I quote, two fighter jets are no problem, I can totally wing this!”</p><p>Jeremy had to admit that he had in fact not quite managed to wing it. The rotor blade of the burning helicopter breaking off and falling into the flames below proved just how much he hadn’t winged it.</p><p>However he was thankfully saved from having to come up with a response, or at least a good excuse, by his radio coming to life with a loud crackle.</p><p>“You guys okay?” Geoff’s voice could be heard. Ryan picked up his own radio.</p><p>“We’re fine,” Ryan said. “The helicopter is down though. And not going up again.” Another withering look directed at Jeremy who did his best to pretend he couldn’t see it.</p><p>“Can you get Jack to pick us up? I think we’re somewhere close to Mount Chiliad.”</p><p>A long pause instead of an answer and for a moment Jeremy feared the radio had also broken down.</p><p>“We don’t have any working helicopters left at the moment,” Geoff then said.</p><p>Jeremy frowned.</p><p>“What happened to the one Jack was flying?” he asked.</p><p>“The same thing that happened to yours,” Geoff said, voice turning techy. “You guys really need to stop crashing every fucking vehicle I get you for missions. I am running out of people to steal more from.”</p><p>“How long till you can get somebody here?”</p><p>“Few hours? Fully depends if somebody can stop herself from crashing even more of my goddamn helicopters!” Geoff raised his voice at the end of the sentence.</p><p>“Anybody could have missed that wind turbine!” the distant voice of Jack could be heard yelling back.</p><p>“Just pick us up at Chiliad, soon as you can,” Ryan said.</p><p>“Will do. Try not get eaten by anything till then.” With that Geoff signed off and Jeremy and Ryan were back to their lonesome two. Or rather lonesome one since Ryan immediately started marching off towards Mount Chiliad without another glance at Jeremy.</p><p>Startled Jeremy looked after him, before quickly following him.</p><p>“This is almost like hiking,” he said when he finally caught up with the man. “You know nature stuff and all that.”</p><p>Ryan didn’t answer, only stared straight ahead.</p><p>“Though I’m not really good with nature, you know,” Jeremy rambled on in a desperate attempt to fill the silence. “I mean I like driving dirt bikes ‘round the desert and flying over Chiliad and all that but that probably doesn’t count as nature, does it?”</p><p>Still no answer. Jeremy almost stumbled on a root, caught himself just in time and let out a loud curse.</p><p>Ryan kept on marching, not a single look backwards at him.</p><p>Well fuck, Jeremy thought, a feeling of misery rising inside of him. The silent number was new. </p><p>They had fights before but they tended to be explosive and quickly settled. But, Jeremy then thought, this hadn’t been the first time this month he had gotten them in trouble, had it. That thing with the getaway car had the potential to be cool if Jeremy would have actually managed to pull it off. Which he hadn’t.</p><p>And the shotgun and the water melon, that had been equally messy. And stupid probably, it had alerted the cops to their position. And now the thing with the helicopter. He really did mess up quite a bit, didn’t he?</p><p>He forced himself to keep walking, glancing at Ryan out of the corner of his eyes. The man’s expression was unreadable, eyes fixed on the path in front of them and nothing else. A few loose leaves had gotten caught in his hair, ponytail having come undone during or after the crash.</p><p>His heart beat slightly faster at the sight but it had done so for years at this point and was barely worth noting anymore. He had maybe not gotten over his hero-worship-turned-full-on-crush but he had gotten quite good at ignoring it.</p><p>He tried to come up with something to say that would fully encompass the vast array of “Sorry I almost killed us when trying to escape some fighter jets” to “And I’m also sorry that it took two hours before you could wash that watermelon out of your hair” but couldn’t really think of the right words.</p><p>“Sorry, dude,” didn’t seem to quite cover that one. He was still musing over his options when he heard the noise. For a brief moment he thought Ryan or him had stepped on another tree branch. But then he realized the sound had come from behind them.</p><p>There wasn’t enough time for a feeling of dread to build up as he turned around. Instead the moment he saw the cougar staring at him, barely 200 feet away, an instant wave of cold fear flushed through him.</p><p>He felt frozen to the ground, staring at the animal. It was staring back at him, unblinking greenish eyes seemingly glowing in the dusk of the approaching night.</p><p>It must have stalked them, Jeremy thought. Waiting for the right time to attack. His left hand slowly reached for his gun. And touched nothing.</p><p>The helicopter hadn’t been the only thing lost in the flames, it seemed, he thought and some part of him wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Another part, the smart part, the part had kept him alive through the years, made him twist around.</p><p>“Run!” he yelled, hopefully in the direction of Ryan before following his own advice. Behind him the cougar let out an angry snarl.</p><p>Jeremy didn’t turn around to see if it was following them. He focused on running instead, on avoiding tumbling over the roots beneath his feet or getting hit in the face with a branch.</p><p>Over the years he had become quite good at running. Granted, the people usually running after them, had fewer claws and hungry mouths filled with sharp teeth. He guessed the principle was the same though in the end.</p><p>In front of him, Ryan was running too, either having seen the cougar or instinct having taken over the moment Jeremy had yelled at him to run. Jeremy hoped he wouldn’t fall. There were sounds behind them, twigs breaking, that showed the cougar was still after them.</p><p>Jeremy almost couldn’t hear it over the sound of his own heartbeat, drumming in his ears. And then Ryan cursed loudly and stopped running.</p><p>“What…” The rest of the sentence died in Jeremy’s throat. They had reached a river. Quite a big one too.  For a moment Jeremy considered going for an impromptu swim but there was no way they’d be able to fight against the current and reach the other side.</p><p>“Downstream,” Ryan then said, seemingly having come to the same conclusion as Jeremy. He took off without another word and Jeremy quickly followed him. He dared to throw a look over his shoulder, slightly relieved to not immediately getting his face chewed off by a wild animal as he did so.</p><p>His relief increased even more when they ran around a bend in the river and suddenly saw a bridge. Well, a tree stump actually. Perched precariously atop a few rocks and appearing as if one look too many would make it fall into the river below.</p><p>But it meant getting away from this side of the river, Jeremy thought. This side of the river had cougars. The other potentially too but they didn’t know that yet. And Jeremy was willing to take his chances.</p><p>“You go first,” he urged on Ryan. Ryan opened his mouth as if to protest but there was the sound of something coming from the trees and Jeremy pushed him towards the rocks.</p><p>Ryan, for once in their lives, did as he was told and quickly climbed up the rocks and pulled himself up on the tree stump. Throwing another nervous look behind him, Jeremy quickly followed him.</p><p>It wasn’t a second too early. With a loud growl, the cougar lunged at the spot Jeremy had stood seconds ago. Sharp teeth glistened in the sun and despite the fact that it was trying to kill them, Jeremy couldn’t help be slightly impressed. Man, he thought, if I die here I really hope I get to at least come back as a cougar. He could come up with a list of people who deserved death by reincarnated wild cat.</p><p>Pushing any thought about his potential imminent death and reincarnation quickly aside then, he clambered up the rocks. Ryan was already balancing on the tree stump, looking for all the world and Jeremy as if he had done this his entire life.</p><p>It was probably a sight of how dire the situation was, that Jeremy only spent a few seconds admiring his skills. Okay, a few seconds of admiring his skill and a few more admiring his backside. Jeremy looked a lot less graceful when he stepped on the trunk, almost losing his balance on the slippery wood immediately.</p><p>He managed to somehow not fall into the rapid waters below but he didn’t have time to figure out how to rope dance on this tree. The cougar, made even angrier by losing its prey once more, had jumped on the rocks after him.</p><p>Jeremy cursed under his breath. Then he cursed again loudly because screw this, he was about to get eaten by a cougar. He took a careful step on the tree trunk, then another one. Moos was growing all over the tree and he almost slipped again, somehow managing to catch himself in time. More steps, more almost falls and the wood was so brittle he was afraid his foot would sink in if he attempted to go any faster.</p><p>And then the cougar was on the trunk all while he hadn’t even managed to make it to the middle of it. Jeremy locked eyes with it and from up close it was the most beautiful and dangerous thing he had ever seen. And he had spent a lot of time with Ryan.</p><p>A sudden feeling of calmness came over Jeremy. The same kind of calm he felt when they were in the middle of a firefight, bullets flying around his head, body pumping wave after wave of adrenaline through him and he just coolly raised his gun and took aim. Or the other way around. When he wasn’t the one taking aim and all he could see was the business end of a gun, pointed straight at him.</p><p>The cougar had no problem with the wet moos. It stalked towards him, quickly and determined and he wouldn’t outrun it, he finally had to admit. Even if they made it to the other side, they wouldn’t be able to escape it. But, Jeremy thought, if all you had in front of you was your one-way ticket to hell, you better did something brave. Or in Jeremy’s case something stupid.</p><p>As he raised his foot, he could see out of the corner of his eyes that Ryan had reached the other side of the river, had jumped down from the tree trunk on dry land. Relief flooded through him and he was glad that at least this time Ryan wouldn’t get caught up in his stupid plans.</p><p>Then he brought his foot down onto the trunk. Or rather through it. The dead wood broke under the force of his stomp and he raised his foot again and again. Three times proved to be sufficient. With a loud cracking noise, the brittle tree trunk started breaking apart, falling into the waters below with Jeremy following closely behind.</p><p>The last thing he saw was the cougar somehow jumping back to the rock, staring at him with a deep scowl of disappointment at having lost its dinner ticket.</p><p>Then the water swallowed Jeremy, freezing cold, and he had a few moments of deeply regretting all the truly stupid choices he had made today that had brought him to this point. Then he started swimming. Or at least attempted to.</p><p>The powerful stream of the river pulled him back underneath instantly. He tried to gasp for air, only swallowed a mouth full of water instead, somehow managed to get his head back out for a moment to cough and draw in a desperate breath of air before he was pulled back down again.</p><p>He struggled against the current, the weight of the water above him or beneath him and what meaning had up and down anyway. He was floating in the river as his desperate movements grew weaker and weaker and when the helicopter had started burning mere hours ago, he hadn’t expected to end up drowning.</p><p>There was comfort in the fact that at least Ryan was save. Cold comfort but at least warmer than the water around him. Air bubbles came out of his mouth, the last air he had left leaving him and he was glad at least something was able to escape the river.</p><p>But then something touched his shoulders. For one wild moment he thought the cougar had come back for him and he’d laugh if he had any air left. But then he realized it was hands, hands tugging him down or up or somewhere and then suddenly his head broke through the water and he could breathe again.</p><p>He blinked water out of his eyes, too dizzy to be able to quite see what was going on, coughing wildly.</p><p>“Move, you dickhead!” A voice then hissed behind him and it took a moment to recognize that it was Ryan talking. His legs then automatically started kicking, weakly moving against the water. It must have helped at least a bit though because Ryan behind him, hands underneath his shoulders, started pulling him somewhere, kept moving.</p><p>And then Jeremy’s feet suddenly touched ground and after a few more long moments of pushing and tugging and one badly-aimed kick that ended against Ryan’s shin both of them were laying on the shore of the river, breathing heavily.</p><p>Well, Jeremy maybe a bit more than Ryan. He almost did drown though, so he could be forgiven for having a harder time breathing.</p><p>“Well,” he managed after a few more minutes of trying to catch his breath again. “That was…”</p><p>He wasn’t able to finish the sentence because all of a sudden Ryan who had been laying next to him rolled around and onto him, grapping his shirt and pulling his head up.</p><p>“Stupid,” Ryan hissed, eyes dark and furious. “That was fucking stupid, what the absolute hell were you thinking?!”<br/>
<br/>
Startled Jeremy stared at him.</p><p>“I was just trying to…” he stuttered.</p><p>“Trying to get yourself killed?! Cause it really seems like that’s your goal here!” Ryan’s voice, husky with exhaustion and anger grew louder and louder with each word until he was screaming.</p><p>“Ryan…” Jeremy began, unsure what to say or what to do. He had screamed before at him. Jeremy usually screamed right back. But this, this felt different.</p><p>“I didn’t want you to get hurt,” Jeremy said because that was the truth. That was what really mattered after all, making sure Ryan didn’t get eaten by a cougar or didn’t get shot down by some overeager soldiers in jets or get hurt by one of the other thousand enemies they had made over the years.</p><p>“And I don’t want you to die, you idiot,” Ryan mumbled above him. He let go of Jeremy’s shirt all of a sudden and Jeremy’s head fall back down on the ground, still staring up at Ryan.</p><p>Ryan who looked exhausted all of a sudden, even more exhausted than before and he made a move to stand up, avoiding Jeremy’s eyes as he did so.</p><p>Without thinking Jeremy reached out and grabbed Ryan’s wrist. It startled Ryan enough to look at him again and then they were both just staring at each for one long moment. Before Ryan suddenly leaned down, covering Jeremy’s lips with his own.</p><p>It was a desperate kiss, hungry and cold, Ryan pushing close against him as if he wanted to ensure Jeremy couldn’t run away and maybe jump back into the river.</p><p>It was the best kiss Jeremy ever had and he regretted those first few stunned moments he didn’t spent immediately kissing back.</p><p>All too soon though Ryan leant back, not far though, face still close enough to Jeremy’s.</p><p>“Stop trying to get yourself killed,” he whispered.</p><p>“We’re criminals,” Jeremy pointed out, voice breathless from the kiss. “It’s what we do.”</p><p>“Yeah but other criminals somehow manage to not almost burn to death, escape getting eaten by a cougar and then nearly drown. In one day.”</p><p>“Sounds like they are leading boring lives then,” Jeremy said and above him Ryan laughed softly. He leant closer again, his forehead touching Jeremy’s and he felt warm against him. Thousand little sparks flickered through Jeremy at the contact and he felt giddy and happy, wanting nothing else but to pull Ryan closer and kiss him again.</p><p>He had been crushing on Ryan for years. He hadn’t thought it would ever be returned. Judging by the way Ryan’s smile turned softer as he looked at him, he had been wrong.</p><p>“Just be more careful. A bit at least. For me,” Ryan mumbled.</p><p>“The big bad Vagabond, caring about somebody else’s well-being?” Jeremy couldn’t help teasing. “You’re going to ruin your reputation if people find out.”</p><p>“I think I can deal with that if it’s you,” Ryan said. Warmth flooded through Jeremy and he’d find that cougar again and hand him a thank-you basket for helping him end up in this situation.</p><p>“I’ll be more careful,” Jeremy said. He could promise this at least, he figured. “If you kiss me again,” he then also added because he had always known how to bargain.</p><p>“I think that’s a deal I can live with,” Ryan said, smile turning wider before leaning towards him.</p><p>“But don’t think I’ve forgiven you yet for making me hike three hours,” he mumbled before he kissed Jeremy again.</p><p>Well, Jeremy thought as he returned Ryan’s kiss, he could think of a few ways to make amendments for that one.</p>
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